Do you use Bing?

Earlier this month, I was in the office of a prospective client and I suggested he do a web search. His laptop was right there and so he typed the search into Bing to get a result! I’ve talked with thousands of small business owners in the past 8 years and this marked only the second time that I’ve encountered someone actually using Bing in real life.

My next questions: “You use Bing? Wow. You don’t use Google to find things online? Why do you use Bing over Google?”

The very slightly defensive answer boiled down to “preference of user experience”. And I suppose we each have the liberty to conduct web searches however we want, but don’t we want the best answers to our queries? Aren’t we looking for the best search results? Don’t most of us use Facebook now instead of Myspace? That’s an awesome comparison actually.

What is Bing?

Bing is essentially Myspace. Do you use Bing? Do you trust Bing? Do you know anyone who does? If so, please comment because I actually really want to know.

In 2011, Bing was famously caught using exact copies of Google search results as it’s own. And even now, their local business listing platform is called “Bing Places for Business”, which is a knock of of “Google Places” from a few years ago. They love to copy the winning team. But I don’t think Google is too worried about it, just as Facebook is not fretting in the rear view mirror at Myspace.

My belief is that very few people actually use Bing. And some people might believe they are using Google when in fact, their default search engine is Bing.

Every time I analyze Google Analytics for a client I look at where the organic search traffic is coming from. And consistently over the years Google is the source of OVER 95% of all search traffic.

Each year, comScore publishes statistics about how Google owns about 65% of search traffic. To me, it’s reasonable to believe someone over there is getting slipped some cash under the table to skew the stats. Isn’t that how we do things in America these days? How can they honestly say that Google is 65%. What stats are they looking at?

I’ll give you a stat to look at:

(An actual website that I analyzed today)

If I’m way off base here and your experience is different, please comment or send us some screenshots.

Of course, as Local SEO professionals, we always submit & claim business listings on Bing, and we respect that it does exist as a tool people might use to find a local business. But in conversations with each other, and with clients, there’s a reason we just say “Google” when referring to “Search Engines”. If your business ranks really well on Google, it’s likely you’ll be too busy to need to worry about Bing.